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Corning CFO on Sales Growth of Gorilla Glass

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    Corning CFO Jim Flaws on the company’s Gorilla Glass and glass for LCD televisions.

  • Duration 6:03
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-- consumer electronic show you know we tried our absolute darkness to break Corning's new -- classic keep reinventing it.

And and I was jumping all over the thing they made me Wear the glasses but I listen that tennis is -- -- slamming my -- -- -- I can tell you it's like kicked.

One -- my old phones I'm not not gonna say who makes it it would -- shattered new Gorilla Glass looking unbelievably good.

And I'm not like one of those Whippet thin supermodel so I couldn't do I couldn't break it and guess what the -- has held up.

For Corning made just came out with their earnings they had even despite economic headwinds they reported their largest annual and quarterly sales.

In the company's history and these guys have been around for a long time so let's bring engine -- he's the Corning chief financial officer good to see -- thank you for being here.

Thanks for having me on.

It amazes me and wheat we -- Gorilla Glass -- got a sexy name it's exciting -- got a whole host of different businesses but specifically first with Gorilla Glass.

Which goes into the Smartphones that every teenager drops -- -- shatters.

This is not happening any -- very much in part because of your Gorilla Glass the revenue from that particular segment up 68%.

How big is this business really become in the grand -- that is Corning.

Well we achieved a billion dollars in sales last year for Corning out of -- eight billion dollars in sales so we're delighted by this.

And remember this is a relatively new product I think we just hit six years.

Of selling the products so we're delighted that that.

And we think there's a lot more upside -- -- over the next couple years as touch moves to pure notebooks rather than just tablets.

Also we think -- -- grows substantially for Corning.

We should we should mention though because one of the things that mr.

Steiner who was who was there with -- My doing -- Gorilla Glass test I had had said was that you guys are now in more than forty different brands.

Of of Smartphones and mobile tablets that -- but let's talk about another huge part of your business and that is the LCD glass business for big televisions.

I'll what is really driving -- -- -- are not cheap yet the consumer with some let's say it's either tentative her down and out.

Is still buying this it's still helping your business talk about that part of it.

-- so -- overall the television markets outside of Japan where it was actually negative units grew about 3% last year.

But what's really happening is the average size of television's went up by two inches.

And sales of fifteen inch and above televisions doubled last year as you saw Consumer Electronics Show -- you wander around large sized televisions are.

Really looking great and we're gonna see in the future.

Better definition of the ultra high definition for two K by four K.

So we think large sized televisions will give us good demand over the next several years and we're delighted by that.

And and -- one of the things that we saw a lot of was was OLEDs organic LED televisions which are super super thin.

What kind of -- has -- been an and is Corning stepping up to the plate to create even thinner but as strong glass for these -- Yes we are -- mean we already supplier glass for -- loads for use in small form factors like the Samsung.

Phones.

But you're gonna see the television -- you saw consumer electronics and we make a glass for them.

And also -- have the potential of our willow glass the ultra thin bendable glass here to be used -- Olympics -- so we're expecting to see that come.

It's fascinating to watch the glass spending 'cause we we look at that as well where you can actually David Ben did it was so cool.

We held in our hands and it's just fascinating to see the ingenuity of the American -- annuity -- That is happening here in this country for for a company that's -- around -- my mom had Corning ware remember that having the dishes and it's really morphed into quite the business but as you look at global business such as.

According you also look at currency fluctuations and analysts are a little concerned about this -- knew you've got a very weak yen.

And some of the issues that do face you are these currency fluctuations how are you -- how -- -- -- to manage that are gonna change your strategy.

Well we've -- always disclose the impact to the yen to our investors and analysts so this doesn't come -- surprise -- I think it was the very sharp weakening of the yen from about eighty to ninety in the month of December.

Took everybody by the speed of that happening.

We've a couple alternatives.

We could potentially move to US dollar price and or we can and turn to some hedges to protect us from further erosion and were evaluating them right now we talked analysts about that today on our earnings call.

One of your weaker segments I don't need to get into -- not breaking news or anything that solar is a weaker business but I assume you will continue to stay in that business even though it is slowing down.

Sure this is primarily through our Dow Corning equity venture they sell off solar poly silicon.

And because of the trade disputes with China right now sales of really shrunken pricing is down.

And we don't believe the future of the solar businesses over.

We may have to shrink it for a period of time and we're prepared to do that so was a little bit of earnings drag.

But you know our fourth quarter was actually the first quarter now since 2010.

That we had year over year earnings increase and that came despite the end dragging us a little and despite -- has -- so.

In the -- but you would shrink fast as we don't know if necessary around -- -- Let me just finally say that include Gorilla Glass is such a success story and all company with a relatively new product of six years.

You considering in the auction -- around like -- -- -- Fox Business try to break it and we can't.

We do have a lot of fun with gorillas would get all products and we hope he'll come to our earning our investor day next week committees who smoke in the products.

I'm trying couldn't quite do it.

And poker face -- take into I ain't broken yet we did breakdown -- irony here.

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